Toyo Proxes Tires in The Fast & The Furious Movies

In The Fast & The Furious movies, drifting was featured
heavily as part of street racing. According to Wikipedia, drifting is a
driving technique "where the driver intentionally oversteers, causing
loss of traction in the rear wheels through turns, while maintaining
vehicle control and a high exit speed. A car is said to be drifting when
the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle prior to the
corner apex, and the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction
to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice
versa), and the driver is controlling these factors."

The
tagline described drifting best, "If You Ain't Outta Control. You Ain't
In Control." I think that was said by Twinkie (played by Bow Wow).

I've never drifted, so I can't exactly describe the sensation. But from
a fan's view, its ballet dancing. There's a certain elegance to the
roaring thunder and mayhem of turbocharged rice rockets.

But
hellish on the tires.

Video Clip: Drifting in a Japanese mountain road

To drift well takes practice. That means
doing it over and over again till you get it right. But face the fact,
it can get expensive. Here is a thread on drift tires from
Drifting.com.

The poster is from Japan where tires are
expensive. But then again, so are everything else as I recall the six
weeks I spent there for a summer study abroad program. The poster's
strategy and tire tips for drifting makes sense. He buys high grip
tires for the front to stay in control, while he "scavenges" anything he
could find for the rear. So used tires, cheap tires, barely useable
tires, anything for the rear wheels since they'll be spinning
against the road.

In The Fast & The Furious movies, Toyo Proxes tires were used
in various cars. These are high-grip, high-end, high-performance
tires. If bought new, these tires are expensive. Of course, for the
movie, there's a movie budget to buy Toyo tires. And I'm sure a lot
were used during the shooting.

Here are some of the cars from the
movie series that use Toyo Proxes tires. The list is not complete, but
I'll do my best to add more in the future: